Chapter 49 I can't pay it back, we can't settle it like this
The cold wind that day seemed to have frozen the relationship between the two of them with a thin layer of ice.
Life went on as usual, nothing unusual. Jiang Yueming was still sleepy, whether he was cold or warmly dressed. His spot was practically a prime sleeping location, coveted by many. With the back door closed, there was no draft, and leaning against the wall provided the perfect sleeping position.
The walls hadn't been renovated in a long time. No. 1 Middle School was established when the People's Republic of China was founded, and some things there were quite old. The walls were peeling, and if you leaned against them, the plaster would slide down in a flash. Every time Jiang Yueming left, the back of his head would be covered in a pile of white plaster.
Li Leshan took those shoes back to his grandmother. He knelt down and helped her put them on; the size was just right. He said that Jiang Yueming's aunt had helped buy them, and he didn't want Li Leshan to spend any more money.
Grandma patted Li Leshan's hand and said earnestly, "Yueming and his family are good people. We should know how to be grateful."
Li Leshan nodded silently to the side. He looked down at the brand-new shoes on his grandmother's feet and remembered his conversation with Jiang Yueming back then. Those words were still replaying in his mind like a revolving lantern.
"Grandma, do I have to pay it back?" Li Leshan wrote a large character on the paper, a neat "pay back" character, along with its pinyin.
"Repay..." Grandma murmured to herself. Her generation valued social etiquette deeply, so much so that it was ingrained in their minds. "Repay, Leshan. You must remember all the kindness others have shown you. We may be poor, but we can't be poor in spirit. We all have to repay. We owe your mother a debt we can never repay in our lifetime, but we must always keep the thought of repaying it in our hearts..."
Li Leshan looked at his grandmother, and the image of Jiang Yueming's piercing expression flashed through his mind. That piercing gaze was like a red-hot needle, suddenly stabbing into his heart. His grandmother's words were like falling stones, shattering him to pieces. He felt suffocated, unable to speak, unable to write anything; his mind was a complete blank.
"It must be repaid," "It cannot be in debt," "It must be kept in mind"...
But how am I supposed to pay it back?
Li Leshan silently questioned himself, but no one could tell him, no one could teach him what to do. His grandmother only said he had to repay her, but she never told him how. This affection grew deeper and deeper, eventually trapping him, burying him, and crushing him. It weighed him down, making him unable to straighten his back or lift his head.
He recalled Jiang Yueming's roar, "I'm good to you, and it's all my own free will!" The anger and grievance in that voice echoed clearly in his ears. That "free will" was burning, unconditional. He couldn't accept Jiang Yueming's kindness, yet he was constantly thinking about "repaying" her.
Returning it would be a betrayal.
Returning it means drawing a clear line.
Returning it means pouring cold water on that burning "willingness".
Li Leshan felt an unprecedented sense of confusion and pain. He stared at the large "repay" character on the paper, as if it were mocking his current predicament. He looked at his grandmother's satisfied smile, his heart filled with struggle and guilt. Finally, a faint yet clear voice overwhelmed his grandmother's heavy admonition, carrying a hint of resolute sorrow.
I can't pay it back...
/
The final exams came out amidst chaos, catching the students completely off guard. The city-wide rankings were meticulously calculated, and all teachers took it very seriously, practically living and working on the podium, even taking up many physical education classes.
These past two days, Jiang Yueming has been studying like crazy to avoid falling behind. Not only is he studying, but he also wants to bury the argument he had with Li Leshan. But occasionally, when he glances at Li Leshan, he can't help but wonder, "Is he still thinking about paying off his debts?"
Han Jiang has been beaming lately. He told me that their class rotates seating arrangements by group, and it'll soon be his turn to sit next to Xu Qing. Jiang Yueming thought it was something impressive, like shaking hands with Xu Qing or confessing his feelings, but it turns out that just sitting next to each other at the same desk is so pathetic.
"Can't you two choose to sit together?" Jiang Yueming lay on the table, not wanting to talk to Han Jiang.
Isn't it confusing to walk around in the same classroom?
"I—" Han Jiang paused for a moment, "You think I don't want to? Well, I can't. Xu Qing insists on sitting with Jingyi. I have no choice."
"That's true," Jiang Yueming said. Xu Qing and Jingyi's friendship was unshakeable. Even if Li Leshan went, he'd probably only be able to sit at the back...
Not necessarily.
"Hey, what are your plans for winter break? Let's go ice skating!" Han Jiang joked. They hadn't been to the ice rink under the Lijiang Bridge in ages. It was probably taken over by elderly folks chatting away.
"I'm still worried about the exam..." Jiang Yueming suddenly looked at Han Jiang. This kid is not normal. He can be so happy just because he sits at the same table as Xu Qing. He is not even worried about the exam.
"If you don't do well on the test, won't your mom punish you this time?" Jiang Yueming asked.
"Damn, of course I'll deal with her." Han Jiang said, "Don't you know what kind of person my mother is? If she's ranked three places below her current level, she'll get some family discipline."
“You don’t have that space, do you?” Jiang Yueming said.
"It's not like you have this space." Han Jiang leaned forward, glancing at the empty seat next to Jiang Yueming, and got to the point, "Hey, ask Li Leshan to find me some physics notes to look at, Xu Qing and I both want to see them."
"Why don't you two just ask them directly?" Jiang Yueming said. "What kind of relationship do we have now? There's no need for me to relay messages."
“No, Xu Qing is too embarrassed,” Han Jiang said in a low voice. “I’m embarrassed too. We can’t even say ‘thank you’ in sign language, and we can’t understand it either. Whatever Li Leshan says, we’re like illiterate people.”
Han Jiang had considered learning it, and so had Xu Qing. They even got together to think about it, but both ultimately failed. Thinking about it now, they both admired Jiang Yueming; he had perseverance and determination. Given his inconsistent approach, the fact that he managed to learn it shows he really put in a lot of hard work.
“That’s true, okay. I’ll give it to you later,” Jiang Yueming said.
"Okay, thanks, brother. I'll treat you two to dinner later," Han Jiang said.
"Don't look back. I'll treat you after the exam. You've never kept your word. You're harder to keep than winning the first prize at the convenience store." Jiang Yueming didn't want to say more.
"No, I only have so much money on hand, I can only treat you two to wontons," Han Jiang said.
"Wontons are fine too, I'd be grateful if you could just treat us to a bowl of porridge," Jiang Yueming joked.
"Okay, okay, it's a deal. Don't disappear like that later." Han Jiang scurried upstairs.
Jiang Yueming watched Han Jiang walk away until he was completely out of sight. These past few days, neither of them had mentioned that incident again. It was as if it had never happened. But Jiang Yueming knew in her heart that not mentioning it didn't mean it hadn't happened; it remained in their hearts like an inescapable shadow, perhaps never to resurface, or perhaps it would surface at any moment.
To clean the exam room, all the books and exam papers had to be moved outside to make room for the exams. Jiang Yueming didn't have much stuff, so he moved his own books first, then Li Leshan's. Their books were side by side, but Jiang Yueming's were uneven; if it weren't for Li Leshan's books supporting them, they probably wouldn't have lasted three seconds before collapsing.
The first evening study session after finishing the three exams was unusually quiet. At this point, no one was yet filled with the joy of an upcoming holiday; instead, they were more anxious and worried about the math exam the next day. Apart from a few whispered answers, the classroom was completely silent.
Jiang Yueming couldn't bear to look at the questions, and she didn't want to humiliate herself by comparing answers with others. If she really wanted to compare answers, why look for someone else? Wasn't this person right in front of her the real walking answer key? The kind of person who might not even be wrong even if the answer was wrong.
In triangle ABC, AD bisects angle CAB and intersects BC at point D... Jiang Yueming was looking at the problem with great difficulty when a note suddenly appeared in front of him. He looked at the desk in front of him, but no one turned around. He then looked at Li Leshan and realized that the note was from Li Leshan.
It can't be...
The answer, right?
Because he seemed very curious about the answer, Li Leshan sent it over.
He was indeed curious about the answers, but not about the answers that had already been tested! He wasn't one to create trouble for himself.
Jiang Yueming swallowed hard, steeled his resolve, and anticipated the possibility that he might get three out of five questions wrong, or even four.
The moment he opened the note, what he saw was not what he had expected. Instead, he was surprised by the few words. He noticed that Li Leshan's handwriting had become somewhat cursive after he entered junior high school.
"I'm sorry, we can't calculate it that way."
Jiang Yueming's heart pounded. If Old Wu caught him standing by the window now, he'd probably think he'd received a love letter. Yes, he couldn't calculate things with Li Leshan like that, like issuing receipts, meticulously recording every bit of kindness and affection, to be repaid later? That wasn't how friends should calculate things.
Jiang Yueming's hand trembled slightly as he held the note. He switched to another pen, solemnly added a stroke, and then handed it to Li Leshan's desk.
He added another line of text, which looked rather ugly next to Li Leshan's handwriting. But upon closer inspection, thanks to his past hard training, his handwriting did resemble Li Leshan's to some extent—a two-tenths resemblance.
As for the next line of text, Li Leshan couldn't figure it out. After pondering it for a while, it didn't seem like Chinese characters. However, he didn't intend to ask Jiang Yueming directly; saying "I can't understand your writing" would be a bit hurtful.
He stuffed the note into his school uniform pocket, smiled at Jiang Yueming, and the note, like a pebble thrown into a still lake, broke down the barriers between them.
The snow had melted, and the road surface looked less desolate after it was cleared. Jiang Yueming and Li Leshan walked back to the Third Alley side by side. He couldn't stay still and insisted on demonstrating to Li Leshan how Han Jiang had fallen flat on his face.
“You really shouldn’t fall…” Li Leshan hesitated for a long time before using sign language.
“No way, I’m not like him. He deliberately fell to show Xu Qing, wanting her to help him up.” Jiang Yueming laughed, “But even if I didn’t fall, you would still help me up.”
Upon hearing this, Li Leshan smiled.
Snow began to fall again under the streetlights. Jiang Yueming, with his nonchalant and unreliable demeanor, looked like he was dancing, or rather, performing a set of national primary and secondary school broadcast gymnastics—"The times are calling." It felt like the preparatory stance, the first section, stretching exercises, were about to echo in his ears…
I don't know when, but a few birds nearby, startled by the falling snow, flapped their wings and flew away into the distance, cooing.
Looking at his face, Jiang Yueming felt much relieved and gently nudged his shoulder.
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Author's Note: A very heartwarming chapter, yet reality is incredibly tragic.
Who! Stole! My! Takeout!
...
Thief, you got something for nothing and just left! Everyone, please take good care of your takeout orders! (Heartbroken)
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